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Use a personal memory to craft a ghost story.

Posted in Dramatic on Oct 25, 2024

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✍️ 69 stories

The 'Ghost' Writer

Submitted to Contest #274

Sarah stares off into the distance as her computer screen dims into a near blackness. It's cold and awfully quiet. The night seems to have slept through even the sirens from Pratkin's ambulances. Her face distorts into a loud yawn before her index taps on the keyboard once again. The screen seems to jolt as the light flashes on and adjusts to the dark room. Her eyes droop into a slim crescent as her fingers slowly return to the email that seems to delete itself with each word she manages. The darkness of her office seems to deepen into a sha...

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The Silent Muse

Submitted to Contest #274

“The Silent Muse” By Edward J. McCoul The gallery was buzzing with whispers and the soft clinking of champagne flutes. A crowd had gathered around a single painting—a portrait, stunning and mysterious. But the artist, Gabriel Wright, was distant, his gaze fixed on the doorway, as if waiting for something or someone. In his heart, he knew that tonight would bring answers. It had started years earlier, on a night when Gabriel had nearly given up painting for good. He’d been struggling with creative block for months. Every brushstroke felt forc...

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cemetery ghost

Submitted to Contest #274

The worn path through the woods was covered with newly fallen leaves. The trail was known to many who took the short cut. It was a quick way for you to shave at least a mile off of your walk. Instead of traversing the main road, you could cut through woods behind an old church. The trail was marked and used year-round by bird watchers, nature lovers and hikers alike. Some people claimed that it felt unwelcoming at certain times of day. In the early morning when mist would rise from a small creek between the trail and the church where an old ...

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The Shadow

Submitted to Contest #274

I am 80 years old in two weeks’ time, my mind returns to this story, like an abscess in your mouth, you know you should leave it alone, but you can’t stop tonguing it. My mind returns, casting over it, worrying it, considering it from different angles, as though the passage of time might cast light on it, when infact the opposite is true. It just gets more and more shadowy. Willow Way, Willow Way, Willow Way. So satisfying to say, at 8 yrs old, I took to repeating it whenever I heard it said. After my mum on the phone to a friend – ‘Willow W...

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The Middle of October

Submitted to Contest #274

It happened in the middle, as most defining events do. In the middle of my incoherent divorce, the middle of a major depressive episode… in the middle of October. My best friend Sam and I were almost a decade apart in age, but I was born October 20th and she the 21st. For years we’d marked our birthdays together, but this year it felt almost imperative to celebrate. I was still suffering the aftershocks of divorce after fifteen years and three kids… Sam was in the worst throes of a years-long depressive episode. We were both laughably poor, ...

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Do They Remain

Submitted to Contest #274

We had moved to a different house, just my mother and I. My siblings had all left home and I was the last one for my mother to shoo from the nest. I was a teenager full of big talk and a cowering fear of the dark (and snakes).  Anyway, after shifting our lives into the new house, we couldn’t find a couple of things. One was the strongbox with the important papers in it. It had all our birth certificates, the divorce papers, diplomas, passports and a tiny box with our baby rings. We looked through every box and piece ...

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The Haunted Trip

Submitted to Contest #274

So here we are, the three of us, buddies since freshman high school days, standing on the porch of a house, early in the morning drinking coffee and tea. This house is registered on the haunted house list, located in a famous haunted town in the Southwest. "Can't believe we are here. And we have you to thank for this Erin", Sam said, leaning on the porch railing. "Second the motion", Jamie replied. "Third", I said. Sam and Jamie are my besties. Sam now has distinctive green hair. If she were 250 pounds heavier and wearing orange, s...

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Yellow Eyed Thing

Submitted to Contest #274

There was a hiss of air as the door swung open. She gripped her guitar like a baseball bat. The strings digging into her fingers.Tara heard a noise emanating from somewhere in the house. She crept out of her room peering through the other bedrooms and then into the living room. She entered the kitchen; cold air seizing her body. The door to the carport was ajar. Tara’s shoulders drooped and she leaned her guitar against the fridge. One of her roommates must have come home briefly and not made sure the door latched properly when they closed i...

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The Legend of Reuben Banner

Submitted to Contest #274

“Granny” stood not even five feet tall. A petite woman with a twinkle in her eyes and Cherokee in her blood, our great-grandmother could make the hair on the back of a grown man’s neck prickle when she told a scary story. Us young’uns heard this one many times growing up. And Granny told it for the truth … Away up near the mouth of the holler where she grew up, lived a man named Reuben Banner. Now, Reuben and his wife, Betsy, made a peculiar pair. He was a harsh, stingy man and known to drink and gamble. People said crotchety “Ol Reuben’s”...

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Café Mystérieux

Submitted to Contest #274

When I got up this morning, there was a pot of fragrantly strong hot coffee already brewed. That’s all. End of story. Oh, except for the part about how I live alone. And I did not make that coffee. Oh, and one more thing? Wouldn’t you know – it’s Halloween.  And just to up the ante, my house is literally The Last House on the Left on my dead-end street. Coincidence? I think not. I looked around nervously. Could there be someone hiding in the garage who had prepared the brew? And if so, did he make it for me...

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Great Grandma Visits

Submitted to Contest #274

Great Grandma VisitsA Short StoryBy Kathy HayesMy father was a change of life baby and most of his brothers and sisters had children when he was born. His nieces and nephews were older than him. Because of this, I did not get to spend much time with my grandparents. I was born in 1958 and dad’s mom died in 1962. Sometimes I think I remember her, but I think it is from stories repeated to me or photos I have seen.My first cousin, Lizbeth, was twenty years older than me and had three children about my age. Lizbeth was grand...

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Our First Home

Submitted to Contest #274

Julian and I began dating in March of 2019. We first met online and soon became infatuated with each other. We talked all day, everyday for a month before we decided to meet in person. We had both just gotten out of bad long-term relationships and wanted to take our time with the next person.  As soon as our eyes met, I had stars in my eyes. He was tall, broad-shouldered and looked like a blonde superman.  I thought I had won the jackpot because this man was not only intellectual and funny, but also incredibly gorgeous. It wasn’t l...

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The Dream Teller

Submitted to Contest #274

The dreams saturated her entire being, she could smell the dirt walls of the basement where two boys were kept bound together until the smaller one died of starvation. She could see the bright red fabric on the Chinese dragon twisting and twirling gracefully against the clear blue sky, like a ballet, as it carried explosives towards a boat full of people. She could hear a mother’s lament, wailing in despair, looking on the bodies of her eight dead children in the countryside, next to a babbling brook. All the dreams had one thing in common: ...

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Only Child

Submitted to Contest #274

ONLY CHILD (Note: This story involves themes of death, including children.) I was an only child. No siblings for me. Except for my sister, who lived in the drainage culvert behind the house where I grew up. The drainage culvert wasn’t much more than a giant, concrete-lined ditch at the base of the hill where my childhood home was built. Growing up in Southern California, the ground was so parched and dry that the first rain of the year didn’t do much more than run off the hard-packed dirt. Not that there was much dirt available to absorb wh...

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Tammy and John-John

Submitted to Contest #274

John lumbered down the stairs, unable to sleep without Eileen by his side. Eileen, his third wife, had gone to stay with her sister. She was deciding whether to leave him for good.  At the bottom of the stairs, John’s head jerked, and he let out a low sound of fear. His first wife was sitting in the easy chair by the sofa. She was smoking.  He closed his eyes and reopened them, but she was still there. He realized he couldn’t smell the scent of cigarette.  “Are you a ghost,” he whispered.  She shook he...

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